People in Juba used to call the Congolese refugees who were camped at Rejaf as Kamaradi, or Kama in short. Kamaradi is the corruption of the French word camarade, a term used among pals or bosom friends to mean companion. In Juba youth lingo you could say ya jek, or jek.

The Congolese Kamaradi worked mainly as cobblers, fishermen, charcoal burners, commercial sex workers - or kongoloji - the women of the night who had nightstands with men in cheap lodges (hence the suffix loji). And because the Congolese refugees offered these services to people in Juba, they were close to us, they were our comrades.

The word camarade in French has its equivalent in English, comrade, which has a similar meaning as the French one - a colleague, friend, ally. Originally the term was associated with soldiers who shared a room in the barracks (or shared a trench).

The equivalent of comrade in Arabic is rafiq. In Juba Arabic the corrupted version of refiq is refiqha, (which is supposed to be the feminine gender version of it in classical Arabic) has been used in Malakia to mean a female friend of a man, or if you may, a concubine or mistress.

In Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the term rafiq was used by his Baath party, and it was believed among the politically correct that any rafiq belonged to the Baath party, a loyalist.

The equivalent of comrade in Kiswahili is ndugu, which was widely used in socialist Tanzania during Julius Nyerere's era. Ndugu means brother or undugu -brotherhood, the Arabic for ashiga. In Nyerere's Tanzania the term ndugu was preferred instead of Mr, although the term only refers to the male gender. A woman's name could therefore be preceded with Bi (Miss/Mrs). Ndugu is rarely used in today's Tanzania but old Nyerereists still cling to the term to denote their socialist leaning.

The Swahili meaning of ndugu resonates in its English equivalent, comrade, which was used as a political term during the French revolution, when such noble titles like sir, mister, madam were abolished, because the nobility terms were associated with monarchy.

After the Russian revolution in 1917, when the Soviet Union was formed, communists throughout the world started calling themselves comrade.

Apart from the corrupted version Kamaradi which was closely associated with Patrice Lumumba's Congolese refugees, the proper English term comrade gained currency in its usage throughout the 1980s, popularized by the then clandestine SPLA radio. That was how the SPLA combatants - right from the leader, the late Dr John Garang down to the SPLA recruit under military and ideological training - referred to each other.

The freedom fighters addressed each other so because they were comrades in arms, comrades in the struggle, people who shared a common cause. In the bush the freedom fighters were true comrades because they had a shared goal. They shared the same food, they consoled each other - they were their brother's keepers, they carried the wounded and dressed them, and of course they fought the common enemy.

Since it is an open secret that the SPLM/SPLA were guests of the Ethiopian communist regime of Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam which gave them moral support, it was obvious that they were inclined to adopt the term comrade.

With the collapse of Communism in 1989, the term almost disappeared from people's vocabulary. However, in countries that originally leaned to the left, the word is still in use. In today's Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe former freedom fighters still refer to each other as comrades. Even in South Africa die-hard supporters of the Africa National Congress address each other as comrades.

In South Sudan former freedom fighters still fondly refer to each other as comrades. And SPLM members and supporters who want to sound politically correct are often heard greeting or referring to each other as comrades, including latter day SPLM converts who did not participate in the liberation struggle.

In essence comrades are supposed to be equals or people who espouse the same principles. Comradeship is supposed to stifle the tendency to promote a personality cult or hero worship. But from the look of things, especially after the end of the war, it is now apparently clear that some comrades are equal, but there are some comrades who are more equal than the rest.

Political connotations aside, some people who feel uncomfortable addressing highly placed colleagues as sir, you Excellency or the flattering Arabic siatak, would prefer the neutral comrade, which is politically correct anyway. As such, comrade is no longer the preserve of socialists or communists. Perhaps it all depends on interpretation, the intention and context behind its usage.

Victor Lugala is an independent journalist and media consultant